hard drive

If you're in need of more space for your data and a NAS unit isn't to your taste, Western Digital has rolled out a new direct-attached storage unit, the My Book Duo. With the My Book Duo comes two bays and USB 3.0, as well as some security add-ons.

Modern day consumers' penchant for high-quality video and computer-generated graphics require not only powerful workstations but also storage devices to match. Addressing a market hungry for such equipment, LaCie has unveiled three new storage solutions at the National Assocation of Broadcasters (NAB) show that puts the best of Thunderbolt 2 technology and Seagate's drives together.

LaCie has updated its Fuel portable drive, doubling capacity of the wireless hard-drive for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. The Fuel, announced at CES in January, now offers up to 2TB of storage that can be shared via WiFi, in addition to AirPlay support for wireless streaming to a compatible device.

Western Digital has introduced its newest offering, the My Passport Pro drive. Says the maker, this is the first portable dual-drive option powered by Intel's Thunderbolt. The drive launched today in both 2TB and 4TB capacities through Apple and various retailers.

Among its other offerings revealed today at CES, LaCie has introduced the hand-crafted Sphere external hard drive, a shiny ball that is at both times retro and modern. The enclosure is circular with a flat base, and there's a stamped logo on the side, the only disruption in the otherwise smooth and polished surface.

LaCie has rolled out the red carpet for the Fuel, a sporty external hard drive designed specifically for the iPad, iPhone, and Mac. In addition to being wireless, the Fuel HDD also features AirPlay, hence the Apple-centric customer base. The drive will be available "soon", though the company hasn't specified a hard date. Priced at $199 USD with 1TB capacity.

Xbox modder Brian Williams has installed two non-standard drives on an Xbox One, testing them to see whether they make for faster boot and game load times than the standard drive. The exercise demonstrates where the gaming industry is at in terms of drive configurations. The take-home point is that hybrid drives -- a traditional hard disk paired with a flash memory or SSD (solid-state drive) -- is a happy medium between speed and cost-effectiveness.

Today the OCZ Technology Group, Inc., made clear their state of affairs, and things are looking bleak. The creators of high-performance solid state drives for computers of all sorts noted that they'd be filing for bankruptcy and that Toshiba had entered an offer to purchase their assets. These two companies have already substantially completed negotiations and OCZ noted that they believed all material terms had been agreed to.

Western Digital has outed its latest drive, the WD Black2, pairing a sizable chunk of solid-state storage with a more capacious traditional HDD for the best of both worlds. The 2.5-inch drive has 120GB of SSD capacity and 1TB of HDD space, and gives the option of greater control over which data is stored where, unlike existing caching drives or, indeed, Apple's proprietary Fusion Drive system.

HGST is a hard drive manufacturer that makes storage products for enterprise use and to fit inside desktop computers and more. The company has announced that it is now shipping a new and very unique hard drive aimed at use in data centers around the world. The new hard drive has 6 TB of capacity and is called the Ultrastar He.